Pitt had been the Prime Minister of Britain during the war against France, and died in 1806.īlake’s use of Buddhist symbolism here is particularly unusual it was more than fifty years before such symbols entered mainstream European painting, and even then they were considered exotic. Pitt and the beast are surrounded by apocalyptic images of war, strife, and suffering, again expressing Blake’s horror of war.
The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth (c 1805) shows William Pitt the Younger as if he was a Buddha in an Asian painting, but directing the “storms of war” in the form of the huge beast, the biblical Behemoth, which is under him.
© The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), William Blake (1757–1827), The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth (c 1805), tempera and gold on canvas, 74 x 62.7 cm, The Tate Gallery (Purchased 1882), London. Although Blake is careful not to offend his memory, he uses Nelson to express the horror of war. Nelson had only died in 1805, and was buried as a hero of the nation the following year. With his arms, he is directing Leviathan, the biblical sea monster which here symbolises (maritime) warfare, and whose coils are wrapped round men and women victims. The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan (c 1805–9) shows, at its centre, the figure of the great British Naval commander, accorded a halo of reverence for his achievements. William Blake (1757–1827), The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan (c 1805–9), tempera on canvas, 76.2 x 62.5 cm, The Tate Gallery (Purchased 1914), London. That of Napoleon was not shown there, and has subsequently been lost. The first two were shown in a private solo exhibition which he staged in his brother’s house in 1809. This article shows a selection of those later tempera paintings, and follows on from the last on his Bible paintings of 1799-1800.īlake painted three works in which he set famous contemporary figures: Admiral Lord Nelson, Prime Minister William Pitt, and Emperor Napoleon. In essence, though, his watercolours were made with water-based paints and a vegetable gum binder on paper, whilst his glue tempera paintings were made with water-based paints and an animal glue binder on a chalk ground. The media and techniques overlap to an extent, and some of his last tempera paintings appear intermediate. After 1800, William Blake continued to paint a limited number of works using glue tempera, although the great majority of his paintings remained in watercolour.
0 kommentar(er)
